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Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Well, i had very high expectations for this film after watching the trailer... but, it wasn't quite so. It actually was a good movie, but not what i expected. It could have been an epic, like La Mome or Ray, but it just missed that opportunity.The story is somewhat incoherent, maybe it's the script, or just bad editing. There were some scenes that are short and take place in different times, so it becomes hard to follow and understand the story and the importance of those scenes. It's a little bit confusing at times and because of that the film loses flow. That is basically the one major flaw in this movie.Apart from that, the actors did a great job, i've never seen Queen Latifah like this, she was wonderful. The music was great of course. The costumes, the set - beautiful.In conclusion, i wouldn't call this a masterpiece, but it's not bad, i would recommend watching it on a Friday night with your loved one maybe. The plot is interesting, the music is wonderful, it sets that 20's mood and you'll have a great time for sure.

Long-overdue and obviously made with good intentions, this TV biopic of legendary 1920s Blues queen suffers from usual script trouble: how to condense someone's life in a two-hour story without making it all like a cartoon. The project was already planned for decades, I remember media talking about possibility of this movie even in early 1970s, right after "Lady sings the Blues" and back than Roberta Flack (who was white-hot at the time) was considered for the main role. Not that Bessie was ever forgotten - "Columbia records" kept her complete works on the market, Janis Joplin paid for her gravestone, there were theater plays and books about her life, notably by Chris Albertson who became world's greatest authority on the subject (and was curiously ignored in making of this movie). It took four decades to finally have this biopic made and contrary to my great expectations, I am saddened that it all resulted with such a predictable stereotypical fantasy.Ingredients are right: cast is spectacular and gives its best shot. Not just Queen Latifah in the main role and Mo'Nique (as Ma Rainey) but countless actors playing the circle of lovers, husbands, boyfriends and relatives are impressive, particularly Khandi Alexander (as vicious cousin) who steals the scene every time she comes up on the screen. Clothing, scenery, visually everything works just fine and for a while you might even enjoy the thrill of re- created world of 1920s specially as actors are so sizzling and determined, there is a very fascinating insight into a long-gone segregated, brutal world of woman who escaped crushing poverty and became breadwinner for everybody around her. BUT (and there is a big but) even though ingredients are right and yes, it actually happen just as shown in the movie (it can be checked in her biography, yes she did spit out and was rejected on her first recording audition, yes she faced the Ku Klux Clan, yes Ma Rainey sang ""Black Bottom Blues", yes she traveled in her own train caravan) after a while script rushes so much that everything becomes one big blur of short episodes piled on top of each other to the point that it really seems like cartoon version of Bessie's life, short nuggets and photo shots. Concerts. Click. Racists. Click. Dominating boyfriend-turned-husband-turned-manager. Click. Bootlegged booze. Click. Fights. Click. Pale white boys interested to make money out of her. Click. She's bisexual. Click.No doubt movie is fascinating for young audience who are finally introduced to artist and those who have never heard of this feisty lady and her contemporaries might be impressed to find out that almost a century ago there were proud black women fighting like lionesses for their own place in the world. Not everybody was a maid, washerwoman or prostitute - Bessie, Rainey, Ida Cox, Alberta Hunter, Victoria Spivey, Lucille Bogan and Sippie Wallace (to name just a few) were heroines of their time and even though they represented "sin" it was still better option than to scrub the stairs in Baltimore. So on one side it works as reminder about important chapter in American history and kudos to good intentions, it might intrigue kids to search for original recordings.Where the film fails is to dig just a little deeper under the surface and explain reasons for Bessie's behavior - we all understand she was this brilliant artist but what we see in the movie is woman who drinks, fights, cusses and basically intimidates everyone around. It is a testament to Queen Latifah's acting that she suggests vulnerability hidden deep inside under all that bravado and there were few short scenes (mostly when she is alone with herself, coming home after the concerts) that glimpse in direction where this movie did not dare to go and which would work much better had the creators or script writers decided to explore her inner world instead of giving us point-by-point well-known snapshots. Curiously, film decidedly ends on a upbeat note, going so far to even present Bessie's triumph in Carnegie Hall (which never happened) and completely ignoring circumstances around her death. I have been living with her music for decades now so naturally after initial excitement about the movie I feel saddened that this big chance is missed now and since it took 78 years from her death for her story to finally reach the movie screen, I doubt that in my life I will see another attempt.

(spoilers)OK. this is going to be the shortest review you have ever read.....How can one take this movie seriously when Bessie Smith's greatest song. "Nobody Knows You" (When You're Down and Out" isn't in the movie!!!!!!!!!(or did I sleep through it?)I first heard of Bessie Smith through the John Hammond sessions sparked by The 1960's Spencer Davis Group's version of the song, sung by Stevie Winwood. Maybe it was a copyright thing like in the Jimi Hendrix bio, but I doubt it as the song is so old. This would be like the George Gershwin Story without Rhapsody in Blue! Or Billy Holiday bio without Strange Fruit! Finally, this quote from Wiki:"Bessie Smith recorded the song with instrumental accompaniment, including a small trumpet section. When Smith's record was released on September 13, 1929 (a Friday), the lyrics turned out to be oddly prophetic. The New York stock market had reached an all-time high less than two weeks earlier, only to go into its biggest decline two weeks later in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, which signaled the beginning of the ten-year Great Depression.Bessie Smith's "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" became one of her biggest hits, but was released before "race records" were tracked by record industry publications, such as Billboard magazine. *******Today, it "more than any other, is the song that most people associate with Bessie Smith".[3]******Q.L was fine as an actress. she can sing and did a reasonable Smith impression, but when all is said and done (according to THIS HBO movie, nothing much happens to Bessie, esp compared to Billy Holiday, or Ray Charles etc. etc Lost her mother, raised by a tyrannical older sister, otherwise not much real drama. The only nod to the dramatic is when her husband leaves her and takes their adopted son away, and of course the haunted locked refrigerator!!Not very much the scheme of things to sing the blues about

The year was 1972 and the challenge for director Sidney J. Furie was how to translate the biography of Billie Holliday into something that had "bite" for the mainstream.He succeeded, in large part by his decision to make the story as much about the music as the personal travails of the famous singer.At the time it seemed the obvious choice. Yet, flash forward 43 years and today the team behind this project, faced with the exact same choice, took the road less travelled.It is not as if Queen L. does not have a set of pipes. After years of appearing in a string of "commodity" lifetime/lifestyle/X-mas movies -- in parts which leveraged off her infectious natural sweetness -- she stunned audiences worldwide with her performance of I KNOW WHERE I've BEEN in 2007.(For the record, how perfect was she in that performance?? This reviewer has that song in every mix he owns and never gets tired of it. Her performance was so flawless that she could have won IDOL on that single track alone.) This is a hard film to review. A lot of talent behind the camera, a lot of talent in front of the camera, and all of it hamstrung by the executive decision to downplay the music and focus on the strife.Larger than life people have larger than life problems. But we already knew that. Personally, I missed the tunes.